1. Hark! the glad sound! the Saviour comes,
The Saviour promised long:
Let ev’ry heart prepare a throne,
And ev’ry voice a song.
~
2. He comes, the pris’ners to release,
In Satan’s bondage held:
The gates of brass before Him burst,
The iron fetters yield.
~
3. He comes, the broken heart to bind,
The bleeding soul to cure:
And with the treasures of His grace
To enrich the humble poor.
~
4. Our glad hosannas, Prince of Peace,
Thy welcome shall proclaim;
And heav’n’s eternal arches ring
With Thy beloved Name. Amen.
Hymn of the Faith
As with so many of the wonderful hymns that can be found throughout our hymnal, Hark! the Glad Sound! (#7) is a gem that is worthy of taking a closer look.
This is an Advent hymn, as is clear from the first line: the Saviour comes! Indeed, our Saviour has come and will return again to bring those who believe in Him and follow Him in word and deed to our heavenly home!
The wonderful thing about hymns like this one – even though we may not all be familiar with the tunes – is that they proclaim the Truth that we find in the Scriptures. Passages like Isaiah 9:6 – “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given…” have been set to music and have also been the foundation for others to write their lyrics, like Philip Doddridge did in 1735.
Before the Revolutionary War occurred, this hymn was written in preparation for the Advent of the Lord.
There is something very moving about knowing that the Church is One throughout time and we have brothers and sisters in bygone eras who believed as we do!
In stanza two, Doddridge wrote that the Messiah would come and release the prisoners… but not from literal prison. Something much worse has befallen mankind and Satan is the warden. Christ came (and will come again!) to save us from sin, Satan, and death!
Jesus Christ dies for our sins, overcoming our tyrannical warden and the condemnation of eternal death.
And Christ come to “bind” the broken-hearted, to cure the soul in such desperate need, and to give His great treasure of grace to enrich us – those who humble ourselves before Him.
Christ is our Prince of Peace and we should sing out as the angels did at the First Coming in worship for all He has done for us!